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First Letter Concerning Toleration/29 of government, with which the law of Christ hath not at all meddled. Fie, indeed, hath taught men how, by faith and good works, they may obtain eternal life; but Fie instituted no commonwealth. Fie prescribed unto Flis followers no new and peculiar form of government, nor put Fie the sword into any magistrate’s hand, with commission to make use of it in forcing men to forsake their former religion and receive Flis. Secondly, foreigners and such as were strangers to the common- wealth of Israel were not compelled by force to observe the rites of the Mosaical law; but, on the contrary, in the very same place where it is ordered that an Israelite that was an idolater should be put to death, 7 there it is provided that strangers should not be vexed nor oppressed. I confess that the seven nations that possessed the land which was prom- ised to the Israelites were utterly to be cut off; but this was not singly because they were idolaters. For if that had been the reason, why were the Moabites and other nations to be spared? No: the reason is this. God being in a peculiar manner the King of the Jews, Fie could not suffer the adoration of any other deity (which was properly an act of high treason against Flimself) in the land of Canaan, which was Flis kingdom. For such a manifest revolt could no ways consist with Flis dominion, which was perfectly political in that country. All idolatry was, therefore, to be rooted out of the bounds of Flis kingdom because it was an acknowledg- ment of another god, that is say, another king, against the laws of Em- pire. The inhabitants were also to be driven out, that the entire posses- sion of the land might be given to the Israelites. And for the like reason the Emims and the Florims were driven out of their countries by the children of Esau and Lot; and their lands, upon the same grounds, given by God to the invaders. 8 But, though all idolatry was thus rooted out of the land of Canaan, yet every idolater was not brought to execution. The whole family of Rahab, the whole nation of the Gibeonites, articled with Joshua, and were allowed by treaty; and there were many captives amongst the Jews who were idolaters. David and Solomon subdued many countries without the confines of the Land of Promise and carried their conquests as far as Euphrates. Amongst so many captives taken, so many nations reduced under their obedience, we find not one man forced into the Jewish religion and the worship of the true God and punished for idolatry, though all of them were certainly guilty of it. If any one, indeed, becoming a proselyte, desired to be made a denizen of their commonwealth, he was obliged to submit to their laws; that is, to em- brace their religion. But this he did willingly, on his own accord, not by